


The Trip

by KazePeriwinkle



Category: Blindspotting (2018)
Genre: Major Injury, Other, Rafael Casal/Daveed Diggs (implied), this is my first fic so please be nice!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-18 09:08:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18117704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KazePeriwinkle/pseuds/KazePeriwinkle
Summary: The time when Rafael Casal tripped and got a concussion, from Daveed Diggs's perspective





	The Trip

Rafael had decided he didn’t need a stunt-double the day of the shooting. It really shouldn’t have surprised Daveed when he made that decision-after all, Rafa has always been a show-off even when they were teenagers. It was inevitable that he’d have the same confidence now.

Daveed still remembers meeting the blond for the first time. He was so small back then, and that only became more obvious by the huge clothes he was drowning in back in the ’90s. They had met at a poetry club that took place after school - one of the only places where Daveed felt comfortable expressing himself. Rafa was positive that he was the best poet in the whole school. He wore a smug grin before delivering his poems, basking in the praise he got. That was why Daveed’s comment came as such a surprise.

“It’s ok, but I think you can revise the second verse more. It feels a bit forced.”

The freshman looked up at the senior with eyebrows all the way up to his hairline. “Really, and how would you do it, umm...?”

The brunet flashed a bright grin at the young poet, “Daveed, and I would do something like this.”

Word’s easily tumbled from his mind to his lips, and without really thinking about it, he had taken every one of Rafa’s lines and woven in new rhymes with more emotional words, and playing with his own style of repetition to make it even better. When he had finished, the blond in front of him had let his mouth fall open from surprise at the perfect revision of his own words. Daveed couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle. He was honestly pretty proud of himself not just for impressing this kid, but also not giving into his shyness and stumbling through it. Then again, poetry always made that easier.

“Yeah, uh, something like that. Now I’ve told you my name, what’s yours?”  
“Rafael. Rafael Santiago Casal.”  
“Nice to meet you Rafael-oh, and my last name is Diggs.”

That pride has always been a part of Rafa’s personality, though he had (somewhat) humbled himself somewhat since being fourteen. In the scene had been working on, Miles was supposed to get into a fist fight with Terry at a party, get punched in the face, and fall on the ground. Daveed watched him practice with the crew all morning, both on mats and on solid ground. He didn’t, however, practice on a driveway where the incident would actually be happening.

“Take one, and….action!”

Aviel, Rafael, and Daveed snapped into character like a switch going off. “Hey, white boy!” Miles spun around and swung at Terry, the man stumbling back before jumping up and throwing another punch. This was where the graceful fall should come in. Rafa prepared himself to fall, but slipped on the tilt of the driveway, falling back head first and feet in the air with a smack hard enough to propel his grill out of his mouth and into the air with a small spray of blood. The entire crew visibly flinched. Daveed jumped at the sound, suddenly shot back from Collin’s reality to his own. Worry crept into the man’s head making his heart stutter and he hurriedly went to help his friend up.

“Hey man, are you ok?” He hated how his voice wavered.

Rafa seemed to be in a state of deliriousness, slow blinking and looking around as if he were drunk. That can't be good.

He tried again, "hey man, do you remember your name?"

At that the blond squinted his eyes, "ya, ya, just give me a minute" and then his eyes rolled back in his head.

Daveed’s stomach dropped and a sense of dread washed over him. “ _Shit!_ ”

The crew had immediately dropped what they were doing and started to circle Rafa, everyone’s voices overlapping each other with concerned statements and questions. A few people reached out to touch the blond but hesitated before deciding against it. Daveed heard someone say they called an ambulance, but he couldn’t tell who. He refused to look away from his friend.

Aviel helped him move Rafa to a bench resting his head on Daveed’s lap. Daveed flinched at the strong hand patting his back, “Hey man, it’s gonna be ok, the ambulance is on their way. He’s gonna be fine.” The brunet just nodded, still not looking up. There was no way to guarantee he’d be ok. How hard did he have to hit his head to be completely knocked out like this? He ran a hand under the blond’s head and -sure enough-blood. Daveed cursed under his breath. _I swear if anything happens to him..._ He hid his face behind his curls, hoping nobody would see how panicked he was, though he guessed it was pretty obvious already. All he could do now is wait until the ambulance arrived. He felt so helpless.

Helplessness is one of the shittiest feelings to have, if you asked him. Ever since he was little, Daveed's circle of concern has greatly outsized his circle of influence. There were just so many people that he wanted to help, and so much that he wanted to say, but he was just one person; a black, Jewish person that it often felt like nobody cared about. He tried to do his part, listening to his friends vent about their struggles in their lives, paying attention to the news, writing poems about important issues he felt passionate about, but at the end of the day, he was helpless to save this huge world he cared so much about. One would think he'd be used to that by now.

The ambulance didn’t take long to get there thankfully. Daveed volunteered-or rather insisted-to stay in the back and watch over his friend. _Please let him be okay._  As if he could hear his thoughts, Rafa began to stir. It took a moment of heavy blinking to get his eyes fully open, but the blond was finally awake.

“...Diggs?”

Daveed let out a loud sigh in relief. “Hey man, how are you feeling?”  
“Where are we?”  
“We’re in an ambulance. You hit your head pretty hard.”  
“Doing what?”  
“Shooting a movie”  
“We’re in a movie?!?!”

That made Daveed laugh a bit, though on the inside he was getting worried even more.  _Fuck, he doesn't remember anything..._  
“Ya, we’re in a movie we wrote.”  
“What?! Is it any good?”  
Daveed felt a smile pull at the corner of his mouth, “Ya, it’s pretty good.”

They chatted like that the whole ride to the hospital, Daveed answering Rafa’s questions and Rafa getting increasingly more excited as he found out more about what they’d been doing. Apparently, he didn’t remember entire years that had gone by. Rafael didn’t remember Blindspotting, living in New York, Hamilton-none of it. Daveed guessed they were still in the Getback in Rafael’s mind. Luckily Rafa was too out of it to really notice how worried Daveed was, letting out nervous chuckles whenever he began to repeat himself.  
"Diggs?"  
“Hey man, how are you feeling?”  
“Where are we?”  
“We’re in an ambulance. You hit your head pretty hard.”  
“Doing what?”  
“Shooting a movie”  
“We’re in a movie?!?!”  
_Oh god, stay calm Daveed._

Finally getting to the hospital took a lot of weight off of Daveed’s shoulders. The nurses quickly wheeled him inside, checking his vitals and asking Daveed twenty questions about what happened, his symptoms, etc. They told him Rafa was most likely going to be fine, and that the doctor would be in soon. Rafa was drifting in and out of conciousness. He was having a fun time making inappropriate jokes with the nurses about missing his pants and then repeating said jokes when his memory lapsed. Suddenly, he got very serious.

"Nurse, where are we right now?"

The nurse smiles at him, not at all surprised at the blond's confusion. "Don't worry, you're at Highland Hospital."

That made Rafa sit straight up in his bed. "Highland Hospital."

"Yes."

"As in the place where people go when they get shot."

"Ah-well, yes, that's technically-"

" _Fuck!"_

Daveed would have found that funny if he wasn't slightly worried his friend was going to die.

He still wasn’t sure what he should be doing, but he felt better now that his friend was under professional surveillance. They told him he’d be fine. Still, though, he needed to do something, anything to make him feel like he was helping, and tell Rafa that he was there for him. He settled for grabbing Rafa’s hand and giving it a firm squeeze. Rafa smiled and squeezed back. Thank Rafa for always calming him down and reassuring him, even when it should be the other way around. That’s always been their dynamic. Daveed is the shy and cautious one, and Rafael is the open and confident one, the one that makes Daveed laugh when he gets nervous, and knows just when to get him out of an uncomfortable place and take a breather.

He recalled a particular time when the two of them had just finished a concert in LA. The turnout was more than they had ever gotten in past shows, most .ikely thanks to Hamilton. Luckily during the actual concert, Daveed was able to immerse himself in the music and thrill of performing enough to forget about the huge crowd. But afterward, when fans were crowding him with cameras and things to sign and hands that wanted to touch their favorite artist-things got harder. As soon as they stepped outside, Daveed felt his breath catch in his throat, and it got hard to breathe. His shoulders tensed visibly, and that caused Rafa to turn his head and quickly switch to ‘caring friend mode’. The blond smiled at the fans with as much charm as he could, politely asking them to wait their turn and not trample them. He did most of the talking and answering of questions while Daveed just forced a smile, nodding along and signing the DVDs and t-shirts being thrust towards him. His hands were shaking, but Rafa had his hand on his back the whole time, rubbing slow, calm circles into his back, and that made it ok.

Daveed was trying to be that person right now, but he was failing miserably. Luckily, Rafa didn’t seem to need it and was perfectly content with Daveed holding his hand by his side. He loved him so much.

Just then, the curtain was pulled aside and a woman with long curly hair came in clutching a clipboard, “Hi! My name’s Dr. Johnson. You must be Ra-er...Raf-eel?”

‘Raf-eel’ was about to say something about that before Daveed cut him off, “That’s him, uh, I’m his friend by the way. My name’s Daveed.” He mentally cursed himself for stuttering at such a small exchange.

The doctor’s eyebrow quirked at bit at the two odd names, “well Daveed, thank you for looking after your friend. I understand he hit his head? Probable concussion?"

She moved passed Daveed to examine her patient, making him quickly drop his hand from Rafa's. Daveed willed his face to stop flushing and watched as Dr. Johnson flashed a light into Rafa’s eyes, checked the back of his head, and asked him a few basic questions.

  
“What’s your name?”  
“Ra-fa-el. You said it wrong”  
“I’m sorry. What’s your friend’s name?”  
“Daveed.”  
“Where are you right now?”  
“A hospital.”  
“Who’s the current president”  
“Obama-wait no-bitch.”  
“Close enough.”

Rafa was given an MRI to double check that no brain damage was done. The doctor told Daveed that he did definitely have a concussion, but no serious brain damage was done. Rafael would be feeling better in no time. The back of his head had a welt and some skin broke, but other than that there were no other issues. She gave him a prescription for ondansetron to help with nausea, and told Daveed that he needed rest and to refrain from any activities that would keep him from resting his brain. No tv, video games, sports, or excessive conversation. Acting was definitely off the table for now. He had never felt more relieved.

Daveed gave the director a call and let him know what was going on. Several members of the crew were on call as well and offered to pick them up, but Daveed just wanted to get back home. He declined all their polite offers, instead opting for a Lyft. He really didn’t need to talk to anyone else, and it wasn’t doing Rafa any good to force himself to stay awake and engage with people. They’d just go back to Rafa’s apartment and take a nap.

The Lyft came in less than five minutes and Daveed helped Rafa get into the car before sitting on the other side. Rafa lulled his head on Daveed’s shoulder, already getting tired. Before he completely fell asleep, he opened his eyes again and looked at the brunet.

“Hey Diggs.”  
“Ya Cash.”  
“I love you.”  
“I love you too.”


End file.
